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The deal expands on a previously announced partnership between Nasdaq and Payward to test Nasdaq Equity Tokens (NETs). In this new phase, the companies will develop an infrastructure to distribute and trade tokenized stocks, which is the issue of digital representations of publicly traded securities, other assets or form of value on a blockchain network, Nasdaq
The investment reflects a growing push by Wall Street to make tokenized securities part of the mainstream market, with Nasdaq positioning itself for a stock market where shares can exist on blockchain networks alongside traditional financial infrastructure. In building that parallel system with Payward, Nasdaq could eventually make trading and settlement faster and allow markets to operate around the clock. The latest deal comes amid a spat between the CEOs of Robinhood and AMC, focused on the brokerage offering tokenized versions of AMC shares without AMC's involvement — offering investors a glimpse of the bigger debate around what exactly a "tokenized stock" represents and what rights its holder gets. While AMC says it creates a synthetic market that gives investors economic exposure without actual shareholder rights, Robinhood , saying it and others are free to create and offer financial products that reference public stocks.
